It is common in current business-to-business (B2B) or other electronic commerce (“e-commerce”) networks to deploy Internet-based collaboration software that attempts to provide a migration from electronic data interchange (EDI) messaging to Internet-based messaging. This is an attempt to perform e-commerce transactions more efficiently and effectively, but problems have occurred since the Internet communication protocols are not currently sufficient to conduct true holistic e-commerce transactions. These problems have occurred, in part, due to several faulty assumptions. One such assumption is that since the Internet is highly scalable, e-commerce transactions based on the Internet will also be scalable. Another faulty assumption that has been made is that B2B networks are just a simple technology migration of existing network connectivity models (for example, EDI). Yet another such assumption is that since the cost of connectivity is significantly lower for the Internet, the overall cost of running B2B workflows will be inherently lower. Each of these faulty assumptions, along with many others, have contributed to the current problems with B2B networks.
Furthermore, EDI protocols have a well understood and defined meaning and are semantically rich relative to flat Internet-based data traffic. Therefore, companies joining e-commerce networks typically must choose between the simplicity of connectivity and low cost of the Internet and the rich semantics of EDI. Even if a company has created a competitive advantage by using custom maps and custom extensions specific to their business, the company must stop using these custom tools and do business in a standard way in order to get the benefits of the Internet. By doing this, the company is essentially giving up their own business semantics in order to get the connectivity, simplicity, and low cost of Internet business communications.